Sunday, October 31, 2010

Oslo. Norway is intensifying its cooperation with Cuban doctors in Haiti, the Norway Post disclosed. An additional NOK 5 million (USD 850 000) has been allocated for cholera medicine and equipment.The new agreement focuses on measures to address the outbreak of cholera in Haiti.Minister of the Environment an International Development Erik Solheim commented, "I am pleased that we are increasing our cooperation with Cuba in Haiti. The outbreaks of cholera we are now seeing demonstrate how vulnerable the Haitian population is. By channelling support via the Cuban doctors, we can reach out to those who are suffering."The agreement between Cuba and Norway is a follow-up of the agreement on health cooperation that was concluded immediately after the earthquake in January.For many years, Cuba has played an important role in the Haitian health service. Today, more than 930 Cuban doctors and other health workers are working all over the country, and more than 500 Haitian doctors have been trained in Cuba at no cost."

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Friday, 29th October 2010 From the archives: The Cuban Missile CrisisPeter Hoskin 2:06pm

48 years ago this week, the Cuban Missile Crisis came to an end. Here are the two Spectator leading articles that bookended our coverage of those thirteen momentous days in October:

Trial of strength, The Spectator, 26 October, 1962

The West faces a grave situation. It would be absurd to think that the showdown on Cuba is only a Soviet-American affair. Rather it is the testing-ground of the determination of the freedom-loving peoples to defend themselves – one selected by Russia with a view to causing as much confusion as possible in the countries of the Atlantic Alliance and the uncommitted States.

We notice one crucial point at once. The Russo-Cuban calculation has failed in the most crucial zone. For one fact stands out: the almost unanimous vote of the Organisation of American States in support of President Kennedy's action. This is astonishing progress from the vague pro-Castroist, or at least anti-Yanqui, sentiments of a year or two ago. Originally the more progressive countries of Latin America had the same illusions that are still current about Cuba among the European Left. But they have since learned by experience – experience denied to our own Castro-appeasers. Even without the rockets, Cuba has been a hotbed of aggression against its neighbours. Its diplomats and agents have organised subversion. In the most promising democracy of South America, Venezuela, President Betancourt only the other day publicly denounced the Cuban-directed efforts to bring down his regime in bloody destruction.

In the last analysis the legal niceties of the American action are not the crux. If it comes to the point, the defence of our liberties, and of peace, depends on our strength. The core of that strength is the power of the United States. A direct threat to that power, if not firmly rebuffed, would mean the crumbling of the sole real guarantee of freedom and law throughout the world. Liberty has a right to self-defence.

The crash construction of missile sites in Cuba – certainly manned by Soviet troops, in the absence of any qualified Cubans – can only be regarded as a deliberate probing by the Soviet Union of the American will to resist. President Kennedy had no real choice. Weakness here would encourage Soviet expansionism in every area of the world. Our own frontier lies in the Caribbean as well as down the Bernauerstrasse. And it is worth saying once again that while our alliance is to defend liberty and peace, theirs is the opposite. We did not feel in the 1940s that our occupation of Iceland was unfair to the Nazis, even though it too was formally a minor aggression. Still less did we suggest that Malta should be offered to the Nazis in compensation.

We do not believe that the Russians have so far abandoned their senses as to have the slightest notion of starting a war. If they want war, no one can prevent their launching it: but their decision would be general one, and not based on any particular crisis. Cuba (or Berlin) would simply be the pretext, designed to give propaganda cover. The Russians have it in their power to aggravate the crisis, or at least give it every appearance of extreme danger, even without any intention of going further. Hysteria can only encourage such Soviet misapprehensions as remain after Kennedy's unambigious action. The West will need strong nerves.

It is on occasions like this that anti-American lunacy flourishes. Those who assume the implausible worst on every occasion have already started on their ululations. There is no need to deal with most of the arguments raised. There are no more than variants on the theme George Orwell contemptuously noted in the last war, when he wrote of having heard it seriously asserted by 'intellectuals' that American troops were in this country not to fight the Germans but to put down a British revolution.

Some arguments are of a more rational kind. For example, it is said that the Soviet missles in Cuba are simply the equivalent of the American missiles in Turkey. The differences – even apart from the fact that our side should make some sort of mental distinction between our missiles and those of our opponents–- are obvious. Russia's Cubas are Estonia and the other Baltic states. South-Eastern Finland is still in Soviet hands as the result of a war openly motivated by a desire to move Finnish weapons – and in those days guns only! – further from Leningrad.

The bases in Turkey (and the United Kingdom) are under allied control. The NATO alliance is a single power. And the missles on the territory of its members are there openly, and so deterrent rather than provocative. The clandestine Soviet build-up in Cuba is another and more sinister matter. But there is more to it than this. The line of Western defence in Europe stands where it does because it was at this point that Stalinist expansionism was contained. We are now asked to accept a further Soviet advance. But we cannot fail to remember what happened when, exactly six years ago, democracy raised its head in Hungrary. There was no question of American missile bases round Budapest, no desire to go further than neutrality on the Austrian model. Yet the Russians held even this to be against their national interest. They crushed Hungrary's newly-won independence. And it was not suggested that this far graver, and far less provoked, act of the USSR was a legitimate occasion for the United States to threaten nuclear war.

It is quite clear that there has been no current of hysteria in America forcing the President to action. On the contrary, the atmosphere was surprisingly cool and moderate, and the President has taken urgent steps on information of an immediate military nature, and on that alone.

The Soviet provocation was evidently based on some uncertainty in Moscow about President Kennedy's firmness. The United States position has now been made clear and unambiguous. With all the potential dangers in the present situation, we may find in the long run that the air has been cleared, and that negotiation on a world scale can at last be started on the sound basis of mutual comprehension Determination is the best beginning to détente.

Peace preserved, The Spectator, 2 November, 1968

The crisis is not yet over, and will not be over until the Soviet rockets are actually removed from Cuban soil. But we may hope that this will be accomplished, without further bad faith, in the near future. The present favourable situation, and the warrant for optimism in future, is due to the skill and determination of the President of the United States. His actions have not only baffled the current threat to peace; they have also given a clear and, we believe, unforgettable lesson on the nature of present-day international politics to the peoples of the world. Meanwhile, we can register our satisfaction not only that the British Government firmly supported the Americans, but that the British people too, in spite of the complicated nature of the crisis, and in spite of the clouds of misleading propaganda surrounding it, aligned themselves overwhelmingly (as the opinion polls showed) in support of their threatened ally.

Krushchev said last year, on the occasion of Nkrumah's visit, 'Even if all the countries of the world adopted a decision which did not accord with the interests of the the Soviet Union and threatening its security, the Soviet Union would not recognise such a decision and would uphold its rights by relying on force.' Such words should be pondered. But at least they show that the Soviet leader may not be incapable of understanding the more moderate American view.

The rapidity of the Soviet climb-down on Cuba is simply explained. If they had continued for a few more days to maintain their challenge, their missiles would have been destroyed and, even more important, when the smoke had died down it would certainly have been found that the Castro regime was not among the survivors. By rapid retreat they have at least secured their political toehold in the Western hemisphere. Castro's puppet dictatorship will remain an ulcer on the body of Latin America. But at least we can now be certain that more vigorous measures will be taken to prevent the spread of the infection. Krushchev, moreover, had rubbed in the puppet nature of the Cuban regime by agreeing, without 'consulting' Castro, to United Nations handling of events on Cuban soil.

One of the most striking lessons of the whole affair has been the view it has given us of the quality of the Soviet leadership. No one, or at least no one properly informed about international politics, doubted their general intention of harming the free world and expanding their sphere at the expense of democracies. In this sense there was nothing new in their latest manoeuvre. But the tactics with which they attempted to implement their long-term strategical plan were a revelation. What was revealed was a shallow, irresponsible adventurism. President Kennedy was right when he said, 'I call upon President Krushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations.' It was the low quality, the peasant Machiavellianism, the cheap conman's and gamber's quality of mind, which came as a surprise even to those of us who have not credited the Russians with any great political sense in the past.

Yet the Russians, with all the inadequacy of their thinking (even from their own point of view), are not incapable of learning a lesson Cuba should be a striking one for them. And it is to be hoped that the results will lead to the elimination of individual irresponsibilities in the Kremlin, and to strengthening such elements of good sense as exist in the minds of Mr Krushchev and the more moderate of his advisers.

We believe that anyone who read what we said last week will agree that it is not hindsight which gives is the right to comment, and to comment adversely, on some of the attitudes taken in the middle of the crisis by certain periodicals and politicians in this country. International politics does not consist in making debating points. The Russians will grab Turkey, or anywhere else, if they can. If they can't, they won't – regardless of how favourable a vote they might get in a school-boy debating society.

Elsewhere in these pages note is taken of the way in which the hysterical element in British politics have proved themselves to be little more than apologists for totalitarian aggression and an adjunct to the Soviet propaganda machine – an inefficient adjunct, it is true, but it was harder for them than for us to imagine in advance that the Russians would confess that they were liars and cheats. The believers in this view will in future, we imagine, be treated with the contempt they have now so unashamedly earned. But even certain commentators with claims to good sense and integrity showed an unreal attitude to the crisis. Even the Manchester Guardian openly urged that if the Americans were compelled to excise the Cuban bases, we should vote against them in the United Nations.

As for the Observer, it actually chided the Americans for hoping for the end of the Soviet type of dicatatorship. But unless the USSR and its allies evolve to the level of civilisation implied by political democracy, there is a permanent threat to peace. No one in his senses would wish to liberate the subjects of the Moscow and Peking empires by a threat of nuclear war. But equally, it would be absurd to renounce the hope that the better system will prevail – in the interests not only of political humanism but of the long-term prospects of world peace.

Worst of all, Mr Gaitskell started talking about the 'doubtful legality' of the American operation, and even gratuitously obfuscated the issue by suggesting that the Russians would be justified in invading Turkey. This is not the kind of invitation that a Western leader issues. As it is, the only effect it could have had would have been to encourage the Kremlin to imagine that an aggression against one of our NATO partners might find the West divided, undecided and doubtfully willing to help. Fortunately the mobilised strength of the United States, and the resolution of the Commander-in-Chief, were facts which no amount og waffling by impotent outsiders could possibly cancel. If Krushchev had not climbed down, and America had attacked Cuba and overthrown the Castro regime, both the academic and the hysterical forms of anti-Americanism would have been strengthened by argument and catchword respectively. But Krushchev judged rightly from his point of view that continued provocation was not worth the bones of a single Siberian ballistics grenadier. Meanwhile we in England, whose faith in Mr Gaitskell as a possible alternative Prime Minister had been shaken by his performance on the Common Market, find his present wobbling a far more sinister disqualification.

As we suggested last week, the air may have been cleared for a real advance towards peaceful relations. Russian cannot really support an arms race against the United States, and it is in the Soviet interest to settle down to a calmer international life. this rational view may again be smothered by the irrational poison of expansionist ideology. But the West has now made things clear enough, and it is time to think of sitting down to a peace supper – with a long spoon.

Natural Gas (methane) is one of the world's most plentiful, cleanest, safest, and most useful of all energy sources; and Cuba is about to increase its role as part of the country's future energy mix.

Cuba produces today approximately 1.155 million m³ of associated natural gas per year, an increase of 55 percent from 2005 levels of .743 million m³. Cuba's natural gas production is all associated natural gas found within the crude oil reservoirs. The island's geology to date has not proven to be a major source of dry, non associated natural gas reservoirs.

Associated natural gas production is being used as fuel for onsite power generating plants of 400 mw total capacity owned and operated by Energas, a joint venture between Canada's Sherritt and Cuba's Cupet and Unión Eléctrica.

A LNG re-gasification facility to receive Venezuelan-sourced LNG is currently being planned for the southern coast port city of Cienfuegos by CuvenPetrol, a joint venture between Venezuela's PdVSA (51%) and Cuba's Cupet (49%). Two 1-million-ton re-gasification trains are planned for 2012 at a cost of over $400 million. The natural gas is destined as fuel for that city's thermoelectric power plant, and as a feedstock (hydrogen) for the Cienfuegos refinery and future petrochemical/fertilizer plants.

Liquefied Natural Gas

LNG is natural gas that has been super cooled to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 162 degrees Celsius). At this temperature, natural gas condenses into a liquid taking up to 600 times less space than in its gaseous state, which makes it feasible to transport over long distances.

The chilled natural gas, now LNG, is then loaded onto specially designed tankers where it will be kept chilled until it reaches its final destination. The typical LNG carrier can transport about 125,000-138,000 cubic meters of LNG.

Once the tanker arrives at the regasification terminal, the LNG is offloaded into large storage tanks, built with full-containment walls and systems to keep the LNG cold until it is turned back into a gaseous state and moved into pipelines which will deliver the natural gas to the various end-users.

Venezuela

It is estimated that Venezuela has 176 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven natural gas reserves the second largest in the Western hemisphere behind the United States. Venezuela's PdVSA plans to build three liquefaction trains at the Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho natural gas complex in Guiria. The project would source gas from the Plataforma Deltana and Mariscal Sucre natural gas projects. Total investment in the three projects could approach $20 billion, with first exports by 2013.

Atlantic Basin LNG exporters such as Trinidad and Tobago (the only country in Latin America with liquefaction facilities), Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Algeria and possibly Angola could supply Cuba with LNG if Venezuela's supplies are not available at the time of the completion of the Cienfuegos facility.

Cuba's neighbors, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico are the only other Caribbean countries with LNG regasification facilities.

Environment

Natural gas, as the cleanest of the fossil fuels, emits fewer harmful pollutants, and helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury.

Smog and poor air quality is a pressing environmental challenge in Cuba where high-sulfur (3%) crude oil and fuel oil are burned as electric power plant and industrial fuel for the cement, nickel and steel industries. In 2009, high-sulphur fuel oil accounted for 64 percent of Cuba's petroleum consumption.

The CuvenPetrol refinery is in the process of a $3 billion expansion project which would double its processing capacity to 150,000 barrels per day as well as improving the quality of its refined products production.

The Carlos Manuel de Cespedes electric power plant in Cienfuegos is already in the middle of an upgrading and revamping project which will allow her to burn natural gas in its 158 mw generating capacity unit number 3.

Natural gas will provide fuel to the refinery as well as hydrogen for the upgrading units scheduled to be completed by 2013. Natural gas will also be used as a feedstock for a planned $1.3 billion petrochemical complex which will include ammonia and urea producing facilities which will provide Cuba with much needed fertilizers for its agricultural sector.

All seems to indicate that Cuba is moving forward toward an energy policy which embraces energy conservation, modernization of the energy infrastructure and a balance sourcing of oil and natural gas in a way that protects the island's environment.

Jorge Piñón is a former president of Amoco Oil Latin America who now works as a consultant in Miami

The wife of convicted Cuban spy Gerardo Hernández was allowed to visit
him in his U.S. prison last month for the first time in 12 years, Rep.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's office confirmed Friday.
Ros-Lehtinen spokesman Alex Cruz said the Republican congress member
``raised hell'' when State Department officials briefed her on the
visit, after it had taken place.
``We again raised the fact that they are treating Alan Gross and this
convicted spy as equals,'' said Cruz, referring to the U.S. government
subcontractor jailed in Havana. ``We were assured that there was no such
linkage.''
Cruz said the wife's visit took place in early or mid-September --
shortly after Gross's wife Judy was first allowed to visit him in
Havana, where he has been jailed without charges since Dec. 3.
Adriana Pérez visited her husband at the federal prison in Victorville,
Calif., according to the blog Cafe Fuerte, which first reported the
visit Thursday.
Hernandez, leader of the Wasp spy network rolled up by the FBI in 1999,
was sentenced to life in prison for his role in Cuba's 1996 shootdown of
two Brothers to the Rescue planes that killed four South Florida residents.
Perez had been denied U.S. visas to visit her husband for the past 12
years, and became a central part of the Cuban government's campaign to
push for the release of Hernandez and the four other jailed members of
the Wasp network.
Cuba's government has not acknowledged Perez' visit. Evidence presented
at Hernandez's trial showed she was undergoing intelligence training in
Havana at the time of his arrest so she could join him in Miami.
The timing of the Perez and Judy Gross visits to their husbands fueled
concerns by Ros-Lehtinen and relatives of the Brothers to the Rescue
victims over a possible swap -- Alan Gross for Hernández.
Alan Gross was arrested after he delivered satellite equipment to Cuba's
Jewish community. He has not been formally charged, though Cuban
officials have alleged he was involved in intelligence gathering
activities. U.S. officials deny the allegation.

Now that hundreds of migrant smugglers are serving prison terms, federal officials say there has been a major drop in the number of undocumented Cuban migrants reaching South Florida shores.BY ALFONSO CHARDYachardy@ElNuevoHerald.com

The number of Cuban migrants arriving in the United States from Cuba has declined partly because hundreds of smugglers are now in prison as a result of a federal crackdown, according to immigration officials.

At least 546 migrant smugglers have been criminally charged in more than 300 federal indictments in South Florida since 2006 and most of these defendants have been convicted and are now serving prison sentences, said Kevin Crowley of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement homeland security investigations.

``The amount of people we have put in prison plus other factors have contributed to the decline in numbers,'' said Crowley, assistant special agent in charge in Miami. ``There are people incarcerated right now who cannot smuggle.''

Recent figures released by several federal agencies showed that the number of Cubans interdicted by the Coast Guard or arriving from Mexico was way down. The figures cover undocumented Cuban migrants, not the estimated 20,000 annual immigrant visas issued by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

The figures showed that fewer than 7,000 undocumented Cubans were interdicted or arrived at the border during the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30 -- a huge drop from the peak of almost 20,000 in 2007.

When the figures emerged in early October, federal officials cited a number of factors behind the decline, including the U.S. economic crisis, which makes it tougher for relatives to pay smugglers' fees, and more efficient Coast Guard and Border Patrol methods.

Since 2006, the number of indictments and arrests of migrant smuggling suspects has been rising, largely because of cases investigated by ICE special agents, Crowley said. The cases are brought to the attention of the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Florida.

ICE obtained 35 indictments against 61 defendants in 2006.

Om 2007, that was followed by 60 indictments against 113 defendants.

In 2008, 125 indictments were issued against 217 defendants.

In 2009, 52 indictments were issued against 83 defendants.

So far, in 2010, there have been 56 indictments against 72 defendants, Crowley said.

Some Cuba migrant smugglers have received stiff sentences.

In November 2008 in Fort Pierce, for example, a human smuggler was sentenced to six life sentences plus a consecutive 32-year term for smuggling and narcotics trafficking conspiracies that resulted in the deaths of three foreign nationals.

In April this year, two Cuban nationals involved in a Haulover beach vessel grounding were charged with migrant smuggling in a venture that resulted in the landing of 15 migrants and the grounding of a multimillion-dollar yacht.

Friday, October 29, 2010

HAVANA, Cuba, Oct 28 (acn) After five years of being closed to the public, the National Museum of Contemporary Ceramics was reopened after being moved from the Castillo de la Fuerza fortress to its new venue of Casa Aguilera, in Old Havana.Cuban News Agency

The Museum's director Alejandro G. Alonso told ACN that due to the current characteristics of the building the collection has a new museological conception, there are new showcases and the walls can be used to exhibit the pieces.

Among the novelties, the director said one of the halls will be used to display pots from La abstracción exhibition which shows the history of ceramics since it first appeared in Cuba by the late 1940s through the present. The pieces on display are changed every three months, said the director.

G. Alonso said the museum has around 750 pieces, and the collection is constantly growing as the institution counts on a fund allocated by the Office of the Historian of Havana which allows it to purchase more works.

It also counts on artists who donate their pieces to the museum or lend them for exhibition.

A set of informative panels complement the praise-worthy chronological collection that includes works by front-runners of this artistic expression, among them Juan Miguel Rodriguez, Marta Arjona and Mirta García Bush and by other figures of Cuban art like Amelia Pelaez, Sandu Darie, Rene Portocarrero, Wifredo Lam and Domingo Ravenet.

Other attractions of the institution is an interactive program providing information about the pieces available to visitors and an arrangement of flowerpots in the central patio which has an original humorous touch.

Pieces that stand out for its imaginative and surprising artistic solutions or for its fine techniques such as the Japanese raku ware, a type of pottery traditionally used in tea ceremonies, make a visit to the museum a must.

On the other hand Casa Aguilera shows a Mudejar architecture from the 17th and 18th centuries."

HAVANA – Layoffs scheduled by the government of Raul Castro in the state payroll will affect the health sector, one of the pillars of the Cuban Revolution, but officials say physicians have nothing to worry about.

"Never will a doctor be made redundant, neither a stomach expert nor a technician," Health Minister Roberto Morales said in comments cited Thursday by Communist Party daily Granma.

"Those who remain available ... (on) the necessary payroll will have the possibility to work at other centers within or outside the country through medical collaboration," Morales said Wednesday at the 10th Congress of the Health Workers Union in Havana.

Morales said that the health payrolls must be tailored "to fit like a suit" at each facility, following the government policy to eliminate 500,000 state employees over the coming six months.

The 350 delegates from all over the country who are attending the congress have been discussing "the essential transformations" that are being made in the sector, including the "reorganization, regionalization and compression of the health services."

The agenda for the meeting includes the analysis of the "labor reordering" as a way to avoid "waste of human resources," as well as how to best ensure economic efficiency and service quality, Granma said.

In addition, a more rational use of resources and greater application of the clinical method was proposed.

According to official figures, the health care union currently has more than 500,000 members, and some 37,000 workers are providing medical services in 69 countries. EFE

Tourism from Spain, one of Cuba's main source markets, is stagnating or declining this year, Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero told Spanish travel agents during the opening of a conference in Santiago de Cuba.

He said he expected Spanish tourism to rise again "sooner or later." The number of Spanish visitors peaked in 2005, at 194,000.

The current stagnation follows a financial crisis and recession that hit Spain harder than other European nations, and U.S. takeovers of two key Spanish tourism companies, and the bankruptcy of another. The purchase of Orizonia Corporación — one of the biggest foreign tourism providers in Cuba and owner of the Iberojet tour operator and Iberworld charter airline — by Washington-based private equity firm Carlyle Group took the company out of the picture in 2006, costing Cuba some 46,000 Spanish visitors per year. The takeover of Spain's Pullmantur Cruises by Miami-based Royal Caribbean Cruises, also in 2006, caused a 22,000-passenger drop in Cuban cruise tourism. Finally, the ceasing of operations by Air Comet and the bankruptcy of its owner, Madrid-based Grupo Marsans, in December last year caused another 20,000-visitor drop in Cuba.

New, smaller Spanish players, such as Gemini Cruises, have picked up the ball, Marrero said.

The Cuban government, in a bold if not brazen move, has reportedly urged the Spanish government to give $155,000 to a program designed to ``counter the daily lies'' against Havana in the European media.

The funds would go to Euskadi-Cuba, a Basque nongovernmental organization that acknowledges its Cuba programs are ``at the request of Cuban authorities,'' the ABC newspaper in Madrid reported.

ABC's report, which appeared on the newspaper's website on Monday, details the case without any commentary on the Cuban request. It does not identify the sources for the information. The Cuban government has not commented on the report.

``It would be an outrage if the Spanish government provides money for the Cuban propaganda machine,'' said Frank Calzón, head of the Center for a Free Cuba based in suburban Washington.

The ABC report said the Cuban Foreign Ministry, ``officially and in writing,'' urged the Spanish Embassy in Havana last month to ask the Spanish Foreign Ministry to fund the program, titled Cubainformación.

The 112,000 euros for the program -- about $155,000 -- would be provided by the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID), part of the Foreign Ministry.

Euskadi-Cuba's website describes itself as a 21-year-old ``association for friendship and political solidarity with Cuba'' and says it offers ``unconditional support for the Cuban revolution.''

ABC reported that the organization described the program's goal in its application for the funds as the ``creation of a network for the information-increased awareness-mobilization and solidarity with Cuba.''

Its website says the program's goal is to ``counter the daily lies and slanderous rumors against the [Cuban] revolution, and to bring closer the island's realities,'' ABC added.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

HAVANA TIMES, Oct. 28 — Among the worst damage suffered by Cuban society in its conflict with the United States has been perhaps the excessive secrecy established throughout the country as an essential civic virtue for protecting lives and properties on the island from "enemy" assaults.

This might appear to be a simplistic excuse, but what was true was that the bearded guerillas had to defend their gains. On March 10, 1959, barely two months after they took power —and well before declaring themselves socialists— Washington made its decision to eliminate Fidel Castro.

Adding to this "mystery syndrome" was the fact that the Cuban government was in the hands of revolutionaries accustomed to conspiracy, an art in which everything is played behind the scenes and where knowing how to hide one's cards is the key to winning.

On a recent trip to El Salvador, I had a long and interesting conversation with one of the members of the Under-secretariat of Transparency. This is a new institution created by the government of President Mauricio Funes and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN).

These former-guerilla fighters believe that the people should be entitled to control their leaders, institutions and businesspeople, but not only through formal hearings [as in Cuba]. Instead, they're providing permanent and ongoing public access to information about their activities.

The official also assured me that transparency is seen as the first battle against corruption, with this being a preventive method of curbing that crime. The maneuvers of the corrupt are much more difficult when their activities are placed under public scrutiny.

How many inept officials could Cuba free itself from if a public control mechanism were implemented over plans and outcomes? How many corrupt individuals would be uncovered if everyone were able to find out about these people's incomes and expenditures?

Students at the Computer University understood this quite well when in a discussion with the president of Cuba's Parliament, Ricardo Alarcon, they demanded that political leaders, elected representatives and ministers periodically make themselves accountable to the people.

The 'protecting national security' argument

But what happened is just the opposite. Those in power argue that the "empire" is constantly searching for vital information to destabilize the country's economy and that the "media multinationals" continually take advantage of any problem to internationally discredit the island.

I won't deny this is true; the US government does have a legion of functionaries pursuing Cuban business activities around the world to economically isolate Havana. Likewise, efforts are made to sabotage the island's trade and to sanction businesspeople of third countries.

It's also necessary to recognize that some media are obsessed with the issue of Cuba. They go to the length of fabricating completely false and ridiculous stories, such as the supposed censorship of American cartoons by United States TV producers.

But what is true is that much of the island's excessive secrecy is not aimed at keeping information out of enemy hands; the hard fact is that all the information that is already in the hands of the "imperialists" and the foreign press could be published on the island.

How then can one explain why the case of corruption —known about internationally— involving Cubana de Aviacion airlines hasn't been made public in Cuba? This secret doesn't seem aimed at protecting the nation; instead, it's being used to salvage the "reputations" of those who were implicated.

Another case: Nine months since it happened, and despite promises of justice pledged through the Granma newspaper, the public was never informed of the results of an investigation into the deaths of over two dozen patients from starvation and cold at the Havana psychiatric hospital.

I have no doubt that those who were responsible have now been judged and sentenced, but what's troubling is that the government didn't make itself accountable to its citizens. Moreover, the minister in charge of that operation was merely transferred over to other responsibilities without having to give the slightest public explanation.

The argument of protecting national security collapses before cases in which the only people who go uninformed are ordinary Cubans on the street. Like writer Lisandro Otero once said, "Under capitalism you don't know what will happen to you, while under socialism you never find out what just did."

It's understandable for a country to guard its secrets, especially when confronted with such powerful enemies, but the "protected sector" in Cuba seems excessive. It has reached such an extent that it could be serving to conceal those who are corrupt, inept and irresponsible.

The Salvadoran authorities know that their policies of transparency will expose even themselves to public scrutiny. However they believe that "it's doubly positive, because eliminating corruption within our own ranks will also give us greater prestige in the eyes of the people."

Journalist and translator who, in the spring of 2003 was sentenced to 15 years in prison for exercising freedom of expression. Since last August he resides in Spain

(www.miscelaneasdecuba.net).- The Spanish government believes that by releasing a few political prisoners, Cuba has now made enough advances in human rights and democracy to allow the European Union to normalize relations with the island. Madrid couldn't be more wrong.

Although I was one of the lucky ones to be released and to arrive here in Spain with 38 other former Cuban political prisoners, my home country remains under the stern grip of an oppressive regime. Let me tell you the stories of some of those brave dissidents still left behind.

Among the many victims of the 2003 crackdown on regime critics is Felix Navarro Rodriguez, who was sentenced to 25 years in jail. I knew him for a long time as a peaceful oppositionist with great popular roots in his village, where he had been a high-school principal. We met again in Canaleta prison, where I was serving a 15-year sentence for my fight for democracy. He never even considered leaving Cuba . His daughter, Sayli Navarro, was expelled from university as a further punishment for his "crimes."

Another Castro victim is Arnaldo Ramos Lauzurique, an economist sentenced to 18 years in jail. At 68 he is the oldest of all the 75 dissidents imprisoned in 2003. He has always said that he wants to die in Cuba . His old and fragile mother is still awaiting his release.

Or consider the fate of Pedro Arguelles Moran, who is 62 and was sentenced to 20 years for his work as an independent journalist. We were both in Canaleta prison, but never in the same section. He suffers from cataracts and when we met at the dining hall, always separated by iron bars, he would recognize me first by my voice. He says no one will ever get him out of Cuba .

Felix, Arnaldo and Pedro are three out of 12 political prisoners who have decided to remain in Cuba . The Cuban regime says it will release all the remaining political prisoners from the group of 75, even those who have no intention of leaving Cuba after being freed. But so far they all still remain in jail.

I respect the mediation of the Spanish government. Partly thanks to Madrid 's efforts, I am free today. But the fact that a group of us are now in Spain when a couple of months ago we were in prison, does not mean that the Cuban dictatorship has fundamentally changed.

We were unjustly jailed and arbitrarily condemned in a sham trial with no real access to defense counsel. (I saw my lawyer only once for five minutes just before the hearing.) We were given very harsh sentences—on average almost 20 years—for our peaceful and civic opposition. Searches of our homes produced no weapons, and nothing we wrote contained any incitement to violence.

We were kept under inhuman conditions, in overcrowded cells that we had to share with common criminals. We were locked away far from our families—in my case 777 kilometers from Havana—which, given the difficulties of transportation in Cuba, imposed an additional, cruel punishment on my loved ones.

Spain wants to normalize relations with Cuba because Havana quasi-banished us, with no documentation recognizing that we had been set free, when we should have never been sent to prison in the first place. Even if all political prisoners had been freed in Cuba and given the opportunity to decide their own fate and to continue their struggle in Cuba for democracy and for human rights, it would have been merely a first step. It would have been an indispensable but not sufficient condition to determine that Cuba has started its transition toward democracy.

Until the Castro regime repeals all its laws violating human rights, allows multi-party elections, free trade unions and independent media, and lets Cubans participate fully in our economy and travel freely, any attempt to normalize relations with Cuba would be premature.

By giving the Sakharov Prize last Thursday to Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas, who has spent 11 years in jail as a political prisoner, the European Parliament has made a clear statement that the struggle for freedom in Cuba is far from over. What should be on the negotiating table is not a token group of political prisoners, but a real prospect for a democratic Cuba .

Mr. Saínz is a journalist and translator who, in the spring of 2003 was sentenced to 15 years in prison for exercising freedom of expression. Since last August he resides in Spain.

The New York Philharmonic canceled a trip to Havana last year because the United States government refused to allow its wealthy patrons to go along, saying they would essentially be tourists. That violates sanctions banning most travel to Cuba.

So the Philharmonic quietly resubmitted its application, this time adding a children's concert and Kidzone beforehand and stating that the patrons would be involved in the activities, officials at the orchestra and in Washington said in recent interviews.

The latest application was submitted in July, but the Treasury Department — which issues licenses for travel to Cuba with guidance from the State Department — has taken no action. The Philharmonic had hoped to go in early February, when it has a hole in its schedule.

But Zarin Mehta, the orchestra's president and executive director, said that with only several months to plan, a February visit appears unlikely. He expressed some frustration with the delay. In September the orchestra had to cancel a trip to the Republic of Georgia as part of its current European tour when the Georgian government withdrew the invitation.

"It is close to the wire," Mr. Mehta said last week, just before the orchestra left on the tour. "I have a feeling February is not going to happen because I don't think we'll get the approval from Washington in time."

A senior Obama administration official said that — as opposed to the original request — the new application was "more compliant" with licensing rules, which allow Americans to visit Cuba for cultural and educational reasons. "We are trying to be supportive," said the official — who lacked authorization to speak publicly and so commented on condition of anonymity — "because the performance is consistent with our broader strategy of increasing people-to-people exchanges with Cuba. But it is not a done deal."

The administration wants to increase opportunities for Americans to travel to Cuba as a way of encouraging contact among people in the two countries while stopping short of ending the long embargo.

While the Philharmonic has sought to visit Cuba for more than a year, it is now falling behind other New York cultural institutions making their way there. American Ballet Theater and a contingent of dancers from the New York City Ballet are appearing at the International Ballet Festival of Havana, which starts this week. Jazz at Lincoln Center sent its in-house orchestra this month. The Chico O'Farrill Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra will visit in December.

The Philharmonic insisted that it bring its patrons, who would pay for the orchestra's visit. Mr. Mehta said orchestra officials asked themselves how the patrons could fit within Treasury Department guidelines for who may travel to Cuba. "We said: 'Well, education. We need people to run the Kidzone,' " he recounted.

The Kidzone, which would be outdoors, would have stations to try out instruments and compose music, among other activities. Mr. Mehta said the patrons would help with seating, maintain lines at the education stations, write on whiteboards and serve as hosts. "The people who go on this trip will have a crash course in what's going to happen," he said. "It's not very difficult."

The proposal creates the prospect of the orchestra's well-heeled supporters, more used to Wall Street offices and Park Avenue co-ops, holding little Cuban hands and shepherding children about. Philharmonic officials said about 100 patrons would go along, as part of a 285-member contingent.

The orchestra has received some support in Washington for the Cuba excursion. Senator Byron L. Dorgan, the North Dakota Democrat who has helped introduce a bill to lift the travel ban on Cuba, spoke on the Senate floor in late September in favor of the trip. He noted that the Philharmonic had traveled to other sensitive spots in recent years and to the Soviet Union during the cold war.

"This makes no sense to me, to decide that the way we are going to conduct diplomacy is to prevent our Philharmonic orchestra from playing in Havana, Cuba, given the fact they have played in the capital of North Korea, in Russia, in Vietnam and more," he said.

In an interview Senator Dorgan said he had spoken to the secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, within the past six weeks, and both were "generally positive" about the Philharmonic's request.

"Deep in the bowels of the bureaucracy the application has not yet been approved," Senator Dorgan said. "I have been repeatedly on the phone pushing and also frustrated that it has not yet been done. I don't know what has been holding it up."

HAVANA, (Reuters) – Despite steps to expand private farming, Cuba is contracting food supplies for 2011 much as it has for decades, showing the limits of reforms and dimming prospects for big increases in output, farmers said this week.

While President Raul Castro's government is paying more for food and allowing farmers to sell non-contracted items directly to Cubans, the state still has a monopoly over the purchase and sale of about 70 percent of the farmers' output, they said.

Communist authorities have decided what crops to grow and livestock to raise and been the sole provider of supplies to private farmers since most land was nationalized in the 1960s.

They purchase and distribute most of the country's food through contracts obliging farmers to sell to the state.

Castro's reforms have allowed more local decision-making about which contracted foods can be grown in given areas and more freedom to sell some fruits and vegetables. But, said one farmer, "We still are not free from the regulations that hold us back."

"I think they are worried there will be chaos in production and distribution if they let farmers do as they please," he said, like others asking that his name not be used.

Farmers had hoped the reforms would allow them to freely sell more of their produce, which would encourage more output, but they said they had only a little more flexibility.

"The state is contracting for 21 products in 2011, which is a little better than this year when they contracted for everything but leafy vegetables," another farmer said in a telephone interview from the provinces.

The contracted items include most of the staples of the Cuban diet, ranging from rice, beans, corn, root vegetables, onions and garlic to some types of bananas, citrus fruit, tomatoes, beef, pork and dairy products.

"The government is obliged to buy up … what it contracts, and then it can purchase more if both parties agree, or we are free to sell what is left to whomever, but only in our local municipality," the farmer said of the 2011 plans.

Castro has made rescuing agriculture from a decades-old crisis a priority since taking over for his brother Fidel in 2008, but has yet to significantly loosen the state's monopoly in favor of market forces.

Cuba's food production fell 7.5 percent in the first half of the year despite the reforms, and even as the cash-strapped country cut food imports."The contracting system should be reduced to the indispensable so that most production can be sold on the basis of supply and demand," local agriculture expert Armando Nova wrote in Temas Magazine, the most outspoken government sponsored publication, earlier this year.

HAVANA – The Cuban opposition should view President Raul Castro's decision to free dozens of political prisoners and liberalize the economy as a chance to promote greater citizen involvement in the political process, a dissident group said Wednesday.

Calling itself the Foundation for Participative Change, the organization is advocating "tactical adjustments" in the face of Castro's ongoing talks with the Cuban Catholic hierarchy and his modest attempts to revitalize the island's trouble economy.

Though the government has not changed its strategy, its latest steps make it possible to speak of an "inflection point" in Cuban politics, according to the foundation.

The group aims to convince elements of "independent civil society" to reassert their "civic role" and engage with the government on the changes coming to Cuba, foundation president Francisco Chaviano told a press conference in Havana.

Dissidents should try to exert "influence as much as possible, from constructive and measured stances, in the popular space of the government's official policy," Chaviano said.

In terms of specific policies, the foundation wants more opportunity for small business and the end of the Communist Party's political monopoly.

As part of its mission, the foundation plans to gauge public opinion by way of surveys and share the findings with officials as a way of "presenting the other view of the country's situation," Chaviano said.

The foundation comprises members of various existing opposition groups, including Agenda for the Transition, the National Civil Rights Council and the Liberal Party. EFE

When Cuban-born jazz arranger Chico O'Farrill died in 2001, his one great lament was not being able to return to the island of his birth, according to his son, pianist/bandleader Arturo O'Farrill. The younger O'Farrill will close the musical and familial circle next month when he takes the New York-based orchestra his father created to Cuba.

The week-long visit will be filled with performances, instruction and musical diplomacy. The Afro Latin Jazz Alliance, the non-profit organization that maintains the Chico O'Farrill Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, announced the trip in a news release on Monday.

The performance highlight will be a gig at the Havana International Jazz Festival, curated by Cuban pianist/composer Chucho Valdes.

"It's been a dream of mine to take Chico's music back to Cuba," Arturo O'Farrill told me by phone this morning. "It's a chance to really connect, in a greater way than anyone else, Cuba with one of its greatest musical heroes — and also connect the idea that Afro-Cuban music and jazz are not separate musical forms."

The emotional highlight will no doubt be the opportunity to hear Chico's music finally performed in Cuba by, in essence, his own orchestra. "This is a spiritual, artistic and familial quest: My mother, my sister and my sons are coming to help give my father's soul some peace by reconnecting him to homeland," O'Farrill says. Arturo O'Farrill has been to Cuba in 2002, but not with the ALJO.

When Chico (whose given first name is also Arturo) arrived in the U.S. in the 1940s, he went right to the row of jazz clubs along 52nd street and to the Latin dance palace right around the corner on Broadway, the Palladium Ballroom. He quickly found work writing big band charts for Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton, Count Basie and countless others.

It was his work with the orchestras of Machito and Dizzy Gillespie that secured him a place in the pantheon of Latin jazz pioneers. His Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite for Machito's band and The Manteca Suite for Dizzy Gillespie were extended works that sound as innovative today as they were in the early and mid-1950s.

Just two weeks ago, the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra under the direction of Wynton Marsalis also made a trip to Cuba during which it gave concerts and workshops, and sat in on jam sessions. But the upcoming trip by the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra has a deeper musical and emotional resonance, considering the O'Farrills' family history in Cuba and the presence of other musicians in the band with cultural and familial connections to the island nation.

In fact, Chucho Valdes, in his role as Artistic Director of the Havana International Jazz Festival, has dedicated the entire festival to Chico O'Farrill and is coordinating a big final concert called Fathers and Sons: From Havana to New York And Back. A third generation of O'Farrill musicians will perform on that gig: Arturo's sons Zachary (19) and Adam (16).

Do you wish you could tag along for the trip? No worries. Documentary film director Diane Sylvester will be going along to make Oye Cuba! A Journey Home, about the music and the tears.

Four House GOP figures who could be crucial to foreign policyJosh RoginThursday, October 28, 2010

These four races could affect foreign policy debate

Congress may not be in charge of making foreign policy, but it sure can influence its implementation. Since taking office in January 2009, members of Congress - drawn primarily but not exclusively from the ranks of the GOP - have slowed the Obama administration's efforts to advance its strategy for dealing with Russia, Syria, Israel, Cuba and a host of other countries. And the midterm elections won't be making things any easier for President Obama.

Republican lawmakers stand to play a huge role in debates next year about the promised July 2011 drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, whether to maintain or increase U.S. foreign assistance packages, and how strongly to press countries such as Russia and China to implement new sanctions against Iran.

If current poll results hold, Republicans will make significant gains in the Senate and probably will take the House, elevating a set of lawmakers to new heights of power and complicating Obama's efforts to execute his foreign policy agenda.

Here's a list of four GOP figures in the House who could be crucial actors on the foreign policy stage when the dust settles after Tuesday's elections.

Eric Cantor

The Virginia congressman, who is the House minority whip, could become majority leader in a GOP-controlled House if Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) is elected speaker. Cantor, who is particularly active in foreign-policy issues involving Iran and Israel, could see his role expand significantly if he is given the power to set the House floor agenda.ad_icon

That could spell trouble for the administration's foreign operations budget, which funds the State Department and sets levels for U.S. non-military assistance around the world. Republicans are threatening to withhold aid to countries they think aren't wholly supportive of the United States, and Cantor told the Jewish Telegraph Agency recently that the president's proposed budget might have to be rejected outright if Republicans take power - after separating out U.S. aid for Israel.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

If Republicans take the House, Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.) is poised to take over the House Foreign Affairs Committee and could drastically alter the administration's agenda. For example, she is likely to scuttle the drive to ease sanctions and travel restrictions on Cuba, which Chairman Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) supports. Ros-Lehtinen, who was born in Havana, is an active member of the Cuban American lobby.

Her ascendancy could also spell doom for Berman's bill on foreign-aid reform. She argues often for more vetting of foreign aid in the hope of finding cuts, and she has also introduced legislation to cut U.S. funding for the United Nations and the Palestinian Authority.

A vocal critic of what she considers the Obama team's cool approach to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Ros-Lehtinen could also use the committee as a sounding board for those who want changes in the administration's approach to Middle East peace. "She's no Dick Lugar," said one House aide, referring to her temperate Senate counterpart. "You'll probably see a lot of contentious hearings."

Kay Granger

Although not certain, it's likely that Granger (Tex.) would take over the chairmanship of the House Appropriations subcommittee for State Department and foreign operations if the GOP wins the House. That would give her a large role in writing significant sections of the State Department's funding bill. Although she supported the legislation put forth this year by Chairman Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.), she criticized the increases for the foreign-ops budget. She's a strong supporter of a balanced budget amendment, which doesn't bode well for foreign-aid funding.

Granger also serves on the defense subcommittee, placing her at the intersection of the debate over how to balance the national security budget and shift resources from defense to diplomacy and development.

Ed Royce

Royce (Calif.) is symbolic of GOP House members who are active in foreign policy. He could become chairman again of the House Foreign Affairs Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade subcommittee, where his staff could hold hearings on the Middle East, Africa, Afghanistan and any other region sensitive to the administration's national security goals.

The U.S. diplomatic mission in Cuba on Wednesday unveiled a change in the way it handles applications for U.S. entry by some relatives of U.S. green card holders, and said it will not affect the time involved in processing the cases.

The change affects only spouses or minor children of U.S. residents, now processed under the Cuban Family Reunification Program (CFRP), the mission said. They will be processed as regular immigrant visa applicants beginning Jan. 1.

It will not affect all other categories of applications currently being processed under the CFRP, said a spokesperson for the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

The CFRP was established in 2007 to reduce the long delays that many Cubans were experiencing in securing visas to enter the United States. Under the program, Cubans cleared for entry did not have to wait on the island for their immigrant visas, and were instead ``paroled'' into the United States and waited there for their green cards.

CFRP was open to the spouses and minor children of Cuban green card holders as well as three other categories of applicants, such as the sibling and adult children of Cuban exiles who are U.S. citizens.

The U.S. mission in Havana said the change in the application process for spouses and minor children, who receive F2A visas, was due to a decrease in the worldwide demand in that visa category.

Beginning Jan. 1, the mission said, F2A applicants ``will be processed as immigrant visa applicants and will receive Legal Permanent Resident (LPR) status upon entry to the United States.''

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

A new seminary is beiing opened in Cuba next month. The new National
Seminary located some 30 miles outside of Havana, will be the first new
religious construction in Cuba in more than 50 years. A delegation from
the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) will travel
to Cuba November 3-6, to attend the celebrations.
The delegation will be led by subcommittee member Archbishop Thomas G.
Wenski of Miami, and will also include Father Andrew Small, OMI,
National Collections Office director for the Church Latin America,
Thomas Quigley, counselor to the subcommittee, and local clergy from the
Archdiocese of Miami.
In addition to the inauguration of the seminary, the group will visit
parishes and missions in Havana supported by the Collection for the
Church in Latin America. The collection is taken up each year in
dioceses across the United States. It supports pastoral projects
throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The collection has supported
projects all over Cuba, including the construction of the new seminary.
The delegation will also visit the Diocese of Pinar del Rio.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS* Cuba is making economic reforms and releasing political prisoners* But it may not be enough to fix relations with the U.S.* Washington is focused on upcoming elections with could see the balance of power shift* The continued detention in Cuba of an alleged U.S. spy is another obstacle

Havana, Cuba (CNN) -- A young Cuban man slouched against his city's famous sea wall, enjoying fall's cool breeze and thinking about the world little more than 90 miles north.

"A lot of people died in that sea trying to make it to the other side," Yoandri Perez, 20, said, while resting along the Malecon, a concrete partition and six-lane highway that holds back the Florida straits from the Cuban capital.

"It's very difficult here. The economy is bad and now they're cutting jobs," he said, enjoying the seasonal shift of cooler weather and rough seas. "But at least the Malecon is a place where we can come to relax."

More than 1,300 miles north, another possible shift is under way. In Washington, as midterm campaigning is peaking, powerbrokers are discussing the effects of a possible change in the balance of power in Congress.

One thing that isn't being discussed: Cuba.

"People on the Hill are just not focused on Cuba," said Sarah Stephens of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, a Washington-based group that advocates an end to the 48-year-old U.S. trade embargo.

"Right now they have the votes [to end the travel ban], but after November it's a whole new ball game."

And President Barack Obama, who pledged "a new beginning" in relations with Cuba, has made few changes since loosening Treasury restrictions in 2009.

"We already initiated some significant changes around remittances and family travel. But before we take further steps, I think we want to see that in fact the Castro regime is serious about a different approach," the U.S. president said last week.

Obama said he was interested in more openings with Cuba, but the Castro government must first do some shifting of its own.

Last year, the president made a similar pledge.

"What we're looking for is some signal that there are going to be changes in how Cuba operates that assures that political prisoners are released, that people can speak their minds freely ... and do the things that people throughout the hemisphere can do and take for granted," he said during a 2009 interview with CNN en Espanol.

The island has since released dozens of political prisoners and announced massive public sector layoffs to pave the way for free market enterprise intended to create new jobs for its former state workers.

"What we're now left with is a president on the hook," said Phil Peters of the Washington-based Lexington Institute. "He said if there were positive developments he would respond, and now we're seeing the release of political prisoners and some pretty significant economic changes."

Senior U.S. officials and congressional sources told CNN the White House had been considering further relaxing regulations, but had been persuaded to hold off until after the November midterm elections.

Republicans are expected to pick up seats in both the House and Senate, leaving the White House with the possibility of facing a Congress more opposed to changing U.S.-Cuba policy.

"The political costs of getting these [changes] out are higher," said one congressional source, suggesting the administration might now trim the package that was being fashioned over the summer. "The question is how much stomach at the White House is there to take that hit?"

Peters said that with the U.S. still engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan and still reeling from a global financial crisis, "Cuba is not a high priority."

"But I think the White House will respond because Obama's word is on the line," Peters added.

In September, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez accused Obama of failing to keep his promise, saying that far from easing regulations, the U.S. administration had tightened the enforcement of trade restrictions.

"The president has fallen far short of the expectations created by his speeches," Rodriguez said in the Havana news conference, stressing the reach of U.S. sanctions on international business and Cuban trade.

"The true impact of the embargo is not just a bilateral impact," said John Kavulich of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. "It isn't Cuba's inability to access U.S. markets, it's Cuba's inability to access foreign exchange and the U.S. ability to manipulate private companies and some governments in their relationship with Cuba."

Despite the U.S. trade embargo, which Cuba calls "a blockade," the United States is the island's leading source of food and agriculture.

In 2000, the U.S. allowed American farmers to sell food and farm products directly to Cuba. A bill passed eight years earlier permits the shipping of medical supplies although red-tape has often slowed the delivery of goods.

While the White House cannot lift sanctions without congressional approval, some analysts believe the real obstacle to improved relations is Alan Gross, an American jailed in Cuba on suspicion of spying.

Gross, 60, had been working for a USAID subcontractor called Development Alternatives Incorporated (DAI) when he was arrested at Havana's international airport on December 3, 2009.

His continued imprisonment -- although he has not been charged -- prompted one of the highest-level diplomatic exchanges between the two countries in recent years.

During the U.N. General Assembly in New York last month, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela spoke with Cuban Foreign Minister Rodriguez in a meeting intended to "encourage the release" of Gross.

Cuba is one of a handful of places -- including Iran and Myanmar -- where the U.S. funds what it calls democracy-building initiatives without the host country's permission.

USAID -- the U.S. Agency for International Development -- came under intense scrutiny in 2006 and 2008 as a result of reports by the U.S. Government Accountability Office that identified potential misuse of U.S. grant money to promote Cuban democracy.

DAI, where Gross was working, does not receive those grants but is a USAID subcontractor engaged in Cuba to "strengthen civil society in support of just and democratic governance," according to a statement from the company's president and chief executive Jim Boomgard.

Gross' continued imprisonment and the potential fallout from the upcoming U.S. election may already have cooled what had once appeared to be a warming of relations.

Torture remains prevalent around the world and millions of jail inmates suffer inhuman treatment, a UN specialist says.

Manfred Novak, UN special rapporteur on torture, on Tuesday said he had visited 18 countries in the past year and only in one -- Denmark -- was no case of torture reported.

"Torture is practiced in most countries of the world," he told a news conference.Advertisement: Story continues below

"There are about 10 million prisoners around the world.

"I would say the clear majority of these prisoners have been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, but there are many more millions of persons in police custody who are treated in a worse manner."

Novak said the torture was part of a "global crisis" in justice.

"There are not enough legal safeguards ... preventing torture, that means there is not enough political will," said Novak, adding the United States has a special duty to put pressure on Iraq to end torture in prisons.

Novak said the visits he had carried out accounted for about 10 per cent of the UN member states.

"I think it is a representative sample -- it is a very very sad picture that I am painting," he said.

Egypt, Algeria, Zimbabwe and Cuba refused to allowed visits by the expert, he said. He did not name the other countries he visited."

Granted, Miguel Angel Moratinos has been summarily relieved from his duties as Spain's foreign minister. Tearful as he may be about losing his job in Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's Cabinet shuffle intended to spur economic recovery, Moratinos is a lucky man.

He's still a member of parliament. He did not have to stand before colleagues reading a belittling confession accusing himself of ungratefulness, disloyalty, selfishness and ideological deviationism. He has a passport and can travel, may be invited to join a corporate board or teach at a prestigious university. His friends don't have to deny they know him, and his name won't be stricken from Spain's history books.

The same can't be said for former Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina of Cuba, or even for his successor Felipe Pérez-Roque. Both have vanished from public life and have become virtual nonpersons.

Moratinos spent a lot of effort -- much of it in vain -- in the last six years trying to burnish the Castro regime's public image and to reassert Spain's leadership within the European Union on Cuba policy. Until the collapse of European communism, Madrid's views about Cuba were accepted with nary a dissent by European countries. That ended when Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Hungarians, et al joined the European Union and offered more credible insights on Cuba, based on their experience with communist rule. Even so, Moratinos argued for ending the European Union's ``Common Policy'' in support of democratic political reform and respect for human rights in Cuba.

For Havana, last week was not very good. Not only was Moratinos fired on the eve of another European meeting to consider Cuba policy, but the European parliament also announced its award of the prestigious Sahkarov Prize to Guillermo Fariñas. A political prisoner in Cuba, Fariñas gained international attention with a 140-day hunger strike early this year, which led to some prisoner releases. Previous Sakharov Prize winners include South Africa's Nelson Mandela and Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi.

Fariñas is not the first Cuban dissident to be so honored. Oswaldo Payá, the Cuban Christian Liberation Movement leader who dared to present thousands of petitions asking for a plebiscite to Cuba's parliament, received it in Strasbourg in 2002. The Ladies in White, a group of women -- mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, of political prisoners who gather and peacefully march to Sunday mass -- were awarded the prize in 2005. The Cuban government turned down their request to be permitted to travel abroad to receive the award.

Moratinos' last favor to Fidel and Raúl Castro was to pretend that he had had something to do with the release of prisoners, whom according to statements from Madrid, were being ``allowed'' to travel to Spain. In reality, those released were exiled, together with their relatives, including young children whose passports are clearly stamped: ``Return Prohibited.''

Ah, but imagine for a moment: What if Moratinos had been born in Pinar del Rio, served as Castro's foreign minister and been dismissed like Robaina? Robaina, too, was the darling of the European left and a revolutionary. One day, Robertico was schmoozing with heads of state; the next day, he was nothing. Sent away to work on a farm in the provinces, a nonperson, his name never to be mentioned again in a Cuban newspaper, radio or TV program.

Robaina's experience is not unique. Pérez-Roque, hand-picked by Fidel Castro to take over after Robaina, was similarly dismissed. Other Cubans, poets, writers, ministers and military officers have gone through the same Castro ritual, all hoping that, if they repented, their families could stay in the house the government gave them, their wives wouldn't be fired from their jobs, their children wouldn't be expelled from the university or, in the case of Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa, would not be taken before the execution wall. The promise to Ochoa was not kept.

Perhaps Moratinos would take notice: European democracies treat their foreign ministers -- and citizens -- with a lot more respect than Cuba.

Frank Calzon is executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba based in Arlington, Va.

The private papers of Philip Agee, the disaffected CIA operative whose unauthorized publication of agency secrets 35 years ago was arguably more damaging than anything WikiLeaks has produced, have been obtained by New York University, which plans to make them public next spring.

Agee, who worked undercover in Latin America from 1960 to 1968 and died in Cuba nearly three years ago, once said he resigned because the values of his Catholic upbringing clashed with his CIA assignments to destroy movements that aimed to overthrow U.S.-backed military regimes. CIA defenders said he was on the verge of being fired.

Agee's first book, "Inside the Company: CIA Diary," published in 1975, included a 22-page appendix with the real names of about 250 undercover agency operatives and accused a handful of Latin American heads of state of being CIA assets. The CIA's classified in-house journal, Studies in Intelligence, called it "a severe body blow" to the agency.ad_icon

Two subsequent books by Agee and Louis Wolf revealed the names of about 2,000 more alleged CIA operatives in Western Europe and Africa.

After the release of "Inside the Company," Congress passed legislation making it a crime to intentionally publish the names of undercover CIA personnel.

In contrast to Agee, WikiLeaks withheld the names of hundreds of informants from the nearly 400,000 Iraq war documents it released over the weekend, according to news reports. And its previous surfacing of Afghan war documents, which an Army specialist is suspected of leaking, did not reveal "any sensitive intelligence sources and methods," according to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

Agee may have started out as an independent whistleblower, but according to retired KGB Maj. Gen. Oleg Kalugin, the ex-operative offered CIA documents to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City in 1973. Suspecting a ruse, the KGB turned him down, Kalugin said. Agee denied that he worked for the Russians, but he openly enlisted Cuba's help in his campaign to neutralize CIA operations against leftists and trade unions in Latin America.

NYU's Tamiment Library, which acquired Agee's papers from his widow, Giselle Roberge Agee, made no mention of the renegade agent's KGB and Cuban intelligence connections in its Monday news release.

But it did maintain that "for the rest of his life Agee was a target of CIA assassination threats."

In response to a query, Michael Nash, the library's associate curator, said, "This information came from the Agee book 'On the Run,' and it is supported by some CIA documents that Agee received as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request."

A CIA spokesperson, speaking on the condition of anonymity, dismissed the allegation as "not only wrong, but ludicrous."

NYU said the acquisition of the Agee collection will be celebrated with a Nov. 9 reception, but the papers will not be available until April.

They include "legal records, correspondence with left-wing activists, mainly in Latin America, and others opposed to CIA practices and covert operations; papers relating to his life as an exile living and working in Cuba, Western and Eastern Europe; lecture notes, photographs, and posters," the library said.

"Mrs. Agee donated the collection to Tamiment because we have an international reputation as a repository documenting the history of left politics and the movement for progressive social change," Nash said in the library's statement.

The United Nations' General Assembly on Wednesday approved a resolution condemning the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba, for the 19th straight year and again by an overwhelming majority.

The resolution was endorsed by 187 of the U.N.'s 192 member nations. The United States and Israel voted against it, and the tiny nations of Marshall Islands, Palau and Micronesia abstained.

It urges Washington to end its nearly half-century-old embargo on the communist-ruled island -- Cuba calls it a ``blockade'' -- but U.S. governments have paid no heed to the previous 18 votes.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, speaking before the vote, criticized President Barack Obama for maintaining the embargo despite his preelection promise of a ``fresh start'' in bilateral relations.

``It is clear that the United States has no intention whatsoever to eliminate the blockade,'' he said. ``The U.S. policy against Cuba has no ethical or legal basis, no credibility or support.''

In reply, Ronald D. Godard, a senior official with the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said his country had the sovereign right to decide its commercial policies toward any country.

Posted on Tuesday, 10.26.10US man jailed in Cuba can call home more oftenBy JESSICA GRESKOAssociated Press

WASHINGTON -- The wife of a Maryland man jailed in Cuba as an accused spy said Tuesday that she and her husband have been able to talk on the telephone more regularly after she wrote an August letter to Cuban President Raul Castro, but that her husband's health is "not great."

Judy Gross wrote to Castro seeking the release of her husband Alan Gross, who was arrested at the Havana airport in December 2009. At the time, Alan Gross was working as a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

In her letter to Castro, which was first reported over the weekend, Judy Gross said her husband never meant the Cuban government any harm. She also told Castro that the couple's 26-year-old daughter has been diagnosed with breast cancer and that the family needed him "more now than ever before."

"We had very limited contact up until our daughter's cancer diagnosis; now we are permitted to speak on the phone somewhat more regularly," she wrote in response to questions from The Associated Press.

Gross said the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, which represents the Cuban government, confirmed that Castro had read the letter. A call to the Cuban Interests Section from The Associated Press rang unanswered Tuesday.

Gross also said her husband has now lost nearly 90 pounds since his arrest. At the time of her August letter, she wrote that he had lost more than 80 pounds. She said his "physical and mental health are not great."

"He is extremely agitated and anxious, and is having trouble relaxing and staying calm," she wrote.

Judy Gross said the U.S. State Department has been "very responsive" but that she has not heard from the White House and has "no idea what, if anything, they are doing to get Alan home."

U.S. diplomats have insisted Gross was doing nothing wrong. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for Gross' release in June, saying that his continued detention was harming U.S.-Cuba relations.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

After starring in [1] public service announcements for the Obama administration, Mexican-American labor activist Dolores Huestra is now starring [2] in public service announcements for Fidel Castro's regime. Senora Huestra is co-founder of United Farm Workers of American and a member of Democratic Socialist of America. Huestra's credentials apparently not only qualify her to be a spokesperson for the U.S., but also for the regime that once aspired to attack our country with nuclear weapons, because the U.S. was "the great enemy of mankind."

The release of the "Cuban Five," for whom Huerta campaigns in her Castro infomercial, has become the Cuban dictator's top propaganda goal — next to having the so-called Cuban Embargo [3] dropped. Naturally, U.S. celebrities [4] have flocked to the cause like flies.

On September 14, 1998, the FBI uncovered a Castro spy ring in Miami and arrested ten of them. Four others managed to scoot back to Cuba. The arrested and convicted spies became known as the "Wasp Network," or "The Cuban Five" in Castroite parlance. According to the FBI's affidavit, the convicted Castro-agents who Dolores Huerta champions in the public service announcement, were engaged in, among other acts:

• Gathering intelligence against the Boca Chica Air Naval Station in Key West, the McDill Air Force Base in Tampa, and the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command in Homestead, Florida.

• Compiling the names, home addresses, and medical files of the U.S. Southern Command's top officers and that of hundreds of officers stationed at Boca Chica.

These Castro agents also infiltrated the Cuban-exile group Brothers to the Rescue, who flew unarmed planes to rescue Cuban rafters in the Florida Straits, also known as the "Cemetery without Crosses." Estimates of the number of Cubans who met horrible deaths in the Cemetery without Crosses, run from 50-85,000. Brothers to the Rescue risked their lives almost daily — flying over the straits, alerting and guiding the Coast Guard to any balseros, and saving thousands of these desperate people from joining their forsaken compatriots. It's worth mention here that prior to the Cuban Revolution, the island country took in more immigrants per-capita than the U.S., including the Ellis Island years.

By February of 1996, Brothers to The Rescue had flown 1,800 of these humanitarian missions and helped rescue 4,200 men, women, and children. That same month, however, the Cuban Five passed the flight plan for one of the Brothers' humanitarian flights over the Cemetery without Crosses to Castro.

With this info in hand, Cuba's top guns sprang to action. They jumped into their MIGs, took off, and valiantly blasted apart (in international air space) the lumbering and utterly defenseless Cessnas. Four members of the humanitarian flights were thus murdered in cold blood.

Three of these men were U.S. citizens, the other, a legal U.S. resident. Among the murdered was Armando Alejandre Jr., who came to the U.S. at age ten in 1960. His first order of business upon reaching the age of 18 was fulfilling his dream of becoming a U.S. citizen. His next was joining the United States Marine Corps and volunteering for service in Vietnam. He returned with several decorations. As a member of Brothers to the Rescue, Alejandre often dropped flowers over the sea, in memory of the thousands that the Brothers had been unable to rescue in time. A man with a weapon or with both hands free to fight has always palsied Castro with fright. So, Castro waited for an occasion when Armando Alejandre Jr. and his Brothers were carrying flowers to make his move.

The premeditated atrocity against Alejandre and the Brothers is what added the "manslaughter" and "conspiracy to commit murder" charges (on top of the ones listed above, 26 charges total) against Dolores Huerta's propaganda assignment from Fidel Castro.

Along with wailing against the "U.S. Embargo" and clamoring for the release of its terrorists in U.S. jails, note that the Castro regime also vents its spleen against a Frontpage contributor [5] who seems to seriously get on its nerves. "David Horowitz and Jamie Glazov at Frontpage Magazine, animators of a conservative tabloid of calumny and rumor, have opened their doors for Humberto Fontova's most scandalous libels against our Revolution," declared Castro's propaganda ministry. We will continue to expose the truth about this cruel dictatorship until Castro and his American apologists are put to shame.

HAVANA - Cuba has set income tax rates at 25 to 50 percent for its soon to be expanded private sector, with the biggest earners paying the most taxes, according to official decrees published Monday.

The rates will range from nothing for those making 5,000 pesos - equivalent to $225 - or less a year to 50 percent for those in the highest bracket, which is more than 50,000 pesos, or $2,252.

The new tax rates came out in the Official Gazette as the government prepares to cut 500,000 workers from state payrolls and issue 250,000 new licenses for self-employment to create new jobs in President Raul Castro's biggest economic reform so far.

Those making more than 5,000 pesos will have to pay taxes, starting at a rate of 25 percent and rising from there as income increases.

The cash-strapped government is looking to the self-employed to increase tax revenues to help pay for expensive social programs such as free health care and education.

Last week the government, in a story in Communist Party newspaper Granma, warned that tax scofflaws "will feel the weight of the law imposed upon them by those mandated to enforce it, the National Tax Office."

The gazette, where the government publishes in thick legalese its new laws and decrees, is not usually a hot seller, but Monday in Havana people could be seen lining up at newsstands to buy copies, then quickly leafing through them on the street.

INTEREST IN STARTING BUSINESSES

Many Cubans have expressed interest in opening their own businesses, with the hope of earning more than the country's $20 a month average salary.

Currently, about 85 percent of the country's labor force of more than 5 million works for the state. Castro, who took over from his ailing older brother Fidel Castro in 2008, wants to trim that number and cut costs.

As of the end of 2009, there were only 143,000 licensed self-employed, although thousands more worked for themselves illegally.

Reaction on the street to the thick decrees, which came out in two separate editions of the gazette, was mixed.

Antonio Soria, a shoemaker working for the state, said he intends to start his own business and views it as a chance to help both himself and the state.

"As a private shoemaker I can retire and have financial support for the future," he said.

"This is a way to contribute to the state's income. Remember that health care and education are free and now that we have the chance to have small businesses, we have to help the country."

Transport worker Ibrahim Fernandez said he supports the private sector expansion, but worried taxes will be too high to encourage small businesses.

"From what I've been able to understand, the topic of the licenses has a defect, which is that they are overcharging taxes. Very expensive, the taxes," he said.

In last week's Granma story, the government outlined a new tax code it said was friendlier to small businesses because while it requires new taxes, it also allows bigger tax deductions.

For the first time since Cuba nationalized small businesses in 1968, the self-employed will be able to legally hire workers.

The regulations issued on Monday said they would have to pay a labor tax amounting to 25 percent of the average salary for their work.